Editing Shang dynasty (section)

=== Other sites ===
The Erligang culture centred on the Zhengzhou site is found across a wide area of China, even as far northeast as the area of modern Beijing, where at least one burial in this region during this period contained both Erligang-style bronze utensils and local-style gold jewellery.{{sfnp|Sun|2006}} The discovery of a [[Chenggu]]-style [[dagger-axe]] at Xiaohenan demonstrates that even at this early stage of Chinese history, there were some ties between the distant areas of north China.{{sfnp|Sun|2006}} The [[Panlongcheng]] site in the middle [[Yangtze]] valley was an important regional centre of the Erligang culture.{{sfnp|Bagley|1999|pp=168–171}}

Accidental finds elsewhere in China have revealed advanced civilisations contemporaneous with but culturally unlike the settlement at Anyang, such as the walled city of [[Sanxingdui]] in [[Sichuan]]. Western scholars are hesitant to designate such settlements as belonging to the Shang.{{sfnp|Bagley|1999|pp=124–125}} Also unlike the Shang, there is no known evidence that the Sanxingdui culture had a system of writing. The late Shang state at Anyang is thus generally considered the first verifiable civilisation in Chinese history.{{sfnp|Keightley|1999|p=232}}

In contrast, the earliest layers of the [[Wucheng culture]] predating Anyang have yielded pottery fragments containing short sequences of symbols, suggesting that they may be a form of writing quite different in form from oracle bone characters, but the sample is too small for decipherment.{{sfnp|Wilkinson|2013|p=669}}{{sfnp|Wagner|1993|p=20}}{{sfnp|Cheung|1983}}

[[File:Shang Jade Human Figure.jpg|thumb|Shang jade human figure, tomb of [[Fu Hao]] (died {{circa|1200&nbsp;BC|lk=no}}). Probably derived from a design of the [[Seima-Turbino culture]].<ref>{{citation |surname=Lin |given=Meicun |year=2016 |title=Seima-Turbino Culture and the Proto-Silk Road |url=https://www.academia.edu/45055541 |journal=Chinese Cultural Relics |volume=3 |issue=1–2 |page=255, Figure 15 |issn=2330-5169}}</ref>]]